Growing up Mr Roger’s taught generations of children and adults, “It’s a beautiful day for e neighbor,” and asked, “Would you be mine?” Childish though it may seem, his earnest desire for a neighbor, for a good friend, is a Christian virtue. For we are taught to pray, Our Father who art in heaven, give us this day our daily bread. What is meant by daily bread? “Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like” (SC III). The fact that good friends and faithful neighbors are listed last is not an indication of their importance. That they are listed at all is an indication of their value. Consider what Holy Scripture has to say about friends:

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity (Proverbs 17:17).

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24; cf. Proverbs 27:6-10)

Of course we have the beautiful example of true friendship in that between David and Jonathan (see 1 Samuel 18-23; and 2 Samuel 1) . Unfortunately many modern Bible critics have distorted this relationship to be of a sexual nature. This is partly because our culture has devalued the word “love.” We love our wives, our husbands. We love the Colts, we love a good hamburger, we love a nice bottle of wine. But we like our friends. This devolution of the meaning of love is unfortunate. Perhaps it is even sinful! For we too easily and too readily equate the word “love’ with sex.

But there is a love that is deeper and broader than sexual activity; a true love that exists not in selfish gain, arrogance, and envy. Consider again the Proverb: There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother (18:24). And read these words of our Lord Jesus Christ on the night when He was betrayed: This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you (John 15:12-15). Indeed Christ is our Brother in the flesh who came down from heaven, suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried. He was raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father. Our Brother in the flesh is the Son of God. This truth is of supreme comfort!

And more, He is also our dearest and truest Friend. Jesus says that the greatest love is that a man lay down his life for his friends. And this is precisely what He did for us! In fact, While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son (Romans 5:10). By His death and resurrection for sin, He has made us His friends. Jesus is called a “friend of sinners” (Matthew 11:19) and He rejoices in this title!

So too are you able to rejoice in the good friends our Lord has given you. They are given to you and you to them in a love that unites you in Christ. I am not convinced that the relationship of friend is a “vocation” in the Lutheran understanding of the word. We are too quick to call everything a vocation. And when everything is a vocation, nothing is.

But there is certainly a theological significance to friendship, as noted in the verse above. Even if we don’t use the word, we do love our friends, even those of the same sex. We love them not with a romantic or erotic love (eros), but with a brotherly affection (philios) and self-sacrificing love (agape). We are commanded to love our enemies and to pray for them (Matthew 5:44). We have no such command regarding our friends. I believe, then, that friendship belongs to the station of the Gospel. We are free to love our friends, sometime for a time and a place, at other times for an entire lifetime. Christian love flows not from compulsion, but freedom. Friendship embodies the law of Christian love, but it also embodies the freedom of a mutual relationship, as our Lord created us to live in faith and love toward Him, not as slaves, but as friends (cf. John 15; see also 2 Chronicles 20:7; James 4:4; Exodus 33:11).

In his work on life together in the Christian community of faith, Dietrich Bonhoeffer comments on the great value and earning for Christian companionship. He speaks of the Church, but his remarks are fitting for Christian friends as well:The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer . . . The believer need not feel any shame when yearning for the physical presence of other Christians, as if one were still living too much in the flesh. They [Christian friends] receive each other’s blessings as the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if there is so much happiness and joy even in a single encounter of one Christian with another, what inexhaustible riches must be invariably open for those who by God’s will are privileged to live in daily community life with other Christians! . . . It is easily forgotten that the community of Christians is a free gift of grace from the kingdom of God, a gift that can be taken away from us any day . . . Christian community [read, “friendship”] means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. There is no Christian community that is more than this, and none less than this. (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p28-31). Rejoice, dear friends in Christ, that our Lord Jesus is pleased to call you “friend,” and we are privileged to call Him so. Rejoice in His gift of good friends to you, living in faith toward Him and in fervent love toward one another, having the Gospel freedom to be a good friend to another. Such is the beautiful day in the neighborhood [read, ‘Church’] on account of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Friend.

Revelation 14:6-7/Romans 3:19-28/St John 8:31-36In the Name + of JESUS. Amen. We know that whatever the Law says it speaks to those who are under the Law. Whatever the Law says is whatever God says. He speaks. He is your Lord and Master. The Law is His good and perfect will for you. He says, You shall have no other gods before Me. Yet you have feared losing your social security benefits, you have loved your money and possessions, you have trusted in yourself.You shall not misuse the Name of the Lord your God. Yet your daily speech is adorned not with prayer and praise and thanksgiving, but with cursing, swearing, and vulgarity. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Yet you have grown wearing of His Word and crave entertainment, excitement, five steps to a better future.You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Yet you have loved yourselves. You have disrespected those in authority, you have hated your brother, you have fantasized about the love of another, dragged your enemies’ name through the mud, and lusted after mammon.

We are unworthy slaves. We have forsaken our one, true Lord and Master and have given our allegiance to another. We have attempted to serve God and mammon. And we got caught. Our mouths are stopped. There is no excuse. We are held accountable to God, the Lord of the Law, the Master of the house. We are unworthy slaves.

And so you rightly stand in fear. For the slave does not remain in the house forever. You can be expelled any day on account of your disobedience. You can try to go through the motions and hope your Lord and Master won’t notice. Won’t notice you have betrayed Him, slandered His good Name, pilfered His goods and squandered His possessions. You can pretend He won’t notice or doesn’t care. After all, you’re still here, you still have a place in His house. But for how long?

Your conscience will get the better of you. You may be able to hide from others. But your guilt won’t let you rest. You have sinned. You have fallen short of God’s Law. Far short.

Repent. As long as you are slaves your conscience will never give you peace. As long as you are slaves you will never earn a place at the table, a spot in the house. As long as you are slaves you will always live in fear and uncertainty, never sure when you’ll get the boot because you never measure up. You are never as good and perfect as the Law demands. You are never perfect as your Lord and Master is perfect; never righteous as His Law speaks.

But the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law. Revealed in the Son who became a slave. Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is the true offspring of Abraham, the Seed of the Woman who was born under the law to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons (Gal 4:4-5).

You are justified to your Lord and Master not by your works or morals or obedience. This is simply the labor demanded of a slave. It earns you nothing. It is expected. Rather, you are made right with God by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, His Son.

He bought you out of bondage and slavery. He redeemed you, a lost and condemned slave, a servant of sin and death. He did so not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death. He is the obedient Son who became a Slave to the Law who was the Lamb for you. Your Lord and Master put Him forward as the Mercy-Seat Sacrifice by His blood. As the blood of the sacrificial lamb was smeared on the Ark of the Covenant, so the blood of the Lamb of God now covers the Law, covers its accusation and condemnations. His blood blots out your sin.

By faith in Him, in His sacrifice, you are made right with God. By faith in the Son you are set free. More than that, you are made sons.

Slaves live in fear for the moment they will be cast out. The Son remains forever. So in the Son you remain. His Word bespeaks you righteous. His Gospel forgives you of all your sins, all your debt and dishonor to your Lord, who is no longer your slave Master, but your Father who loves you. You have a place at the table, a spot in the house. You are free. What will you do with that freedom?

Will you fall back into slavery? Into bondage to sin? May it never be! Do not use your freedom as license for self-indulgence. Following the whims of your heart, indulging the passions, stewing in anxiety, these are not freedom, but another slavery.

Rather remain in the House of your Father. For you are no longer slaves, but children. Eat and drink at His Table. Abide in the Word of His Son which alone gives your guilty conscience peace. His Word and promise are certain. He is just and true. And He has made right what had gone wrong through the life and work of His Son who is the righteousness of God. He reckons this righteousness to you by faith in Him.

This, dear children, is the eternal Gospel proclaimed by the messengers of the Lord to all who dwell on earth. The angel Luther came as the Lord’s messenger at the appointed time. But this Word did not belong to Him; nor was it the possession of Germany. It is the Gospel freedom wrought by the Son given to be preached to every nation and tribe and language and people of all times and places.

Thus the Festival of the Reformation is not one day a year. It’s not a celebration of October 31, 1517 or June 25, 1530. Or the last Sunday in October. The Reformation is the on-going work of the Word of Christ in us and for us. Semper reformandaecclesia est. “The Church is always reforming.” Meaning, we, the Church, the Household of faith, all of us, must always be reforming. You are reformed through the Word of Christ, by which He abides in you and you in Him. You are always justly accused and condemned by His Law, called to die to your sin, to your false allegiances, to your idolatry; and raised to life by His Gospel freedom in the Son who sets you free and makes you sons.

Those who believe thusly are the true offspring of Abraham and of Luther, and moreover, children of the heavenly Father. Abide, then, in the house of the Father with His Son by His Spirit, ever singing His praise, singing of the mighty works He has done, singing of His love for you, how He sent Jesus to be the atonement for your sin.

For by this do you live free, free to live in faith toward God and in love toward your neighbor. Free to trust in His Father and your Father for all that is needed for life and salvation. And free to serve your neighbor according to the works of the law. For you are no longer under the Law. You are not a slave to it. You are under the blood, a slave to righteousness in Christ. Thus may you freely serve your neighbor in thanksgiving to the One who sets you free. For you have an eternal home with the angels and all the saints prepared for you by the eternal Son to Whom be glory in the Church, together with the Father and + the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. It is a bold statement to be sure. Jesus is saying that the entirety of the Old Testament, everything in God’s revelation to man up to that point, literally hangs from these two commandments: love God with your all and love your neighbor as yourself.

Elsewhere St Paul summarized this in one word: love. Agape. Love. This is God’s will for you in any and every situation. Agape. Self-sacrificing love for the other; for your neighbor. Love is always the will of God for you. In everything you do, in everything you say, in everything you think, in everything you are, His will for you is that you love Him with your all and that you love your neighbor as yourself.

And these two commandments are held inseparably together. Now, we are always tempted to delude ourselves about our love for God. We like to think that we love him. We say that we love Him. Yet so often it is a mind game; a self justification. Christ our Lord gives you the concrete way to observe your love for God: He says that it is shown in how you love your neighbor. That is why He said, And the second is like it. These two commandments, the summation of all the Law and Prophets, are tied together as one divine mandate.

The Apostles understood and expressed this in their sermons, the Epistles. Consider St John: If anyone says “I love God” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother (1 Jn 4:20-21).

So the proof of the love you have for God is not found in the mushy feelings of tenderness, the ooey-gooey sighs toward whatever you imagine God to be. No, that’s merely idolatry. That’s self-love. The proof of love for God is precisely in how your treat your neighbor. And of course, Jesus pushes that a little further: I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven (Mt 5:44-45). How do you treat the person who is unkind, cruel, vicious, and hate-filled toward you? How do you react to them? There is the mirror, held right up to your face, reflecting your true self and whether or not you really love God.

Repentance is needed. We are wretched men; poor miserable sinners. For this total love that is God’s will for our lives - this love for God that discloses itself by the way we serve and bless and pray for others, and especially those who are most difficult for us - this is not how we live. It is not who we are. Not one of us in this this room can endure the all - Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all, your soul, with all your mind. Nothing inside but love; agape, self-sacrificial love. That your whole life BE love. This is the good and gracious will of God. And it s not how your live. Its not how I live.

And the result is that we do untold damage to ourselves. We poison our lives with the bitterness and hatred and anger and malice of Satan. And even though we are His baptized children, people in whom God has begun His good work and sewn a heart that love, we still see that this love in us is so weak, so fragmentary, so fragile. We know what God expects of us - total, agape, love - but there’s not a person in this room who comes close.

Well, that not exactly true. In fact, its not true at all. There is one Person here for whom it was and is so. We stood and sang to Him as He spoke to us in His Word. Soon we will greet Him as He comes to us in His Body and Blood. I speak of Him in whose Name we are gathered: Jesus Christ, Son of God, our Lord.

For if all the Law and the Prophets hang on this, Love the Lord your God with your all and love your neighbor as yourself, then on these two greatest commandments does Jesus hang. In Him the two commandments meet. It is the true, lex semper accusat. The Law always accuses. The commandments show us our wretchedness, our sin, how terribly far we are from loving God with our all. But the commandments also show you what and who Jesus, the Christ, is.

This is why He asked, What about the Christ? Whose son is He? And when they rightly answers, David’s! He always gives them the mystery to ponder: How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls Him Lord, saying, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, until I put Your enemies under Your feet”? How can David’s son, his heir, his descendant from his own body, be at the same time David’s Master and Lord?

You know the answer. Because David’s Son is at one and the same time the Eternal Son of the Father. He is God the Word in our flesh, woven in the Woman’s womb, made our brother, our neighbor.

He is the fullness of the Law and the Prophets, the unity of the two commandments. He is Man yet at He is very God of very God. Both at the same time. He came among us to love us. Indeed He is the love of God made manifest. He is Love Incarnate! Again St John’s epistle: In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the all-atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1 Jn 4:9-11).

The God whom you are to love with your all shows up as among us as your neighbor. But He comes not be be served, but to serve. Not to demand love, but to love you. And He loves you as He loves Himself. He loves you all the way to the nails run through His hands and feet and the spear piercing His side. His blood pouring out to give you life and love. He loves you all the way through the abandonment and the loneliness. He loves you all the way to sharing your tomb and sanctifying your grave. He loves you all the way to the stone flung aside and the grave robbed of its prey. He loves you with a total love, an agape, self-sacrificing love for the other, that has no fractions or fragments. And that’s how He as true Man rendered to the Father total love, complete love, the fulfillment of all the Law and the Prophets, hung upon Him.

But death cannot hold a love like that. That kind of love is stronger than death. He joins you to that death-defying love in Holy Baptism, as He joins you to Himself in love. And He feeds that love to you now in His Body and Blood, giving and promising you a love that will be yours forever. In fact, this is His guarantee - the pledge of His love, His Body and Blood back from the grave into your bodies. “Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be” (LSB 430:1). By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment (1 Jn 4:17).

And St John goes on: As He is so also are we in this world (1 Jn 4:17); that is, what you shall be is not yet fully realized, but what you are is already your own. For Christ feeds His Body and Blood to you in love saying, “Child, you have been loved totally, completely, without measure or limit. I have made you My own in Baptism. I feed you with the Bread of Life. Let that love live now in you; shape you, mold you - the love that loves the neighbor and the enemy.”

For while we were yet enemies, Christ loved us and has made us children. Abide in Him and He in you, for He is love. You have been born of Him, in and of His love. And His love in you casts out all fear. In Christ the Law no longer accuses you, for it has been fulfilled. In Christ His Law, His good and gracious will for your life, give you in loving service to your neighbor.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

He sends them out two by two. It is like the Ark in reverse. For Christ, who is the Ark of Life, shall ferry them across the stormy waters of death by His own death, He now sends out His disciples to proclaim the coming Kingdom of God.

Indeed the kingdom has come. It has come in the flesh of their Lord Jesus Christ, who Himself heals the sick, eats with sinners, and proclaims the arrival of the Kingdom in the person and work of the King. He sends out the seventy-two as His emissaries; those who have forsaken worldly provisions for the sake of the Gospel. And in their preaching the Kingdom of God comes upon those who hear the Word through which the Holy Spirit works to create faith in the heart.

And note this: they do not go alone. The Christian faith is not meant to be lived alone by anyone. In fact God does not make anonymous Christians. He creates them to exist in community. Atheism sends you on your way in isolation. But not Christianity. The entire time we live and walk that highway of holiness, that Isaiah spoke of, we walk that road in the company of others; as the prophet wrote at the end of the chapter: The redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing (Is 35:9-10).

St Paul mentioned some of his dear companions: Luke who stuck with him; his wish to see John Mark again; his friend Tychicus sent off to Ephesus. Members of one family, brothers united by a bond stronger than earthly kinship - united together in Christ in the waters of Holy Baptism and given to one another for eternity. Children of the heavenly Father brought together by the Word, walking together toward the glorious renewal of this creation that would come about when their Brother, their Lord, their Master returns.

But sometimes in our walking the way of the Lord there is a lonely stretch or two. St Paul experienced this: At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. All? Even St Luke?

Our Lord Jesus who has sent you on your way, who has placed you in your vocations and given you His Word, gives you companions on this way, brothers and sisters in Him. But they are sinners. They are frail men and women of faith. And sometimes they will let you down. Sometime the one that you thought was a rock you could lean on will fail. This does not mean you are meant to walk the way alone. Though St Paul was deserted during his first trial, he was not alone! In that frightful moment when all his fellow pilgrims left his side, the faithful Pilgrim remained: but the Lord stood by me and strengthened me.

Even in the darkest moments of the journey, when you ache for a human companion to be with you, you will find that is exactly what you have: a good Shepherd who fearlessly walks with you into the valley of the shadow of death. He knows the way in and He knows the way out. He walked it already. He has gone the way of sorrow and suffering, death and the grave, and has returned to take you. He has made a path for you to walk with Him.

This is not the horrible theology and sappiness of those old Footprints pictures. This is the rock solid promise of the Lord of the harvest, who Himself brought the Kingdom of God near to you in the waters of Holy Baptism; plunging you into His forgiveness of sins, giving you the provisions of His mercy - the moneybag of heaven’s treasures, the sandals of His peace, the greeting of His love and joy.

This companionship means everything. This is why St Paul can pray for the forgiveness of those who abandoned him. And he can leave vengeance to the Lord against Alexander the coppersmith. Why the seventy-two can go where the Lord sends them without concern for daily bread, for He shall supply, bread for the body even as He delivers through their Word bread for the soul.

For the One who sends out the seventy-two, His emissaries, is the One who goes after them. He also goes before them and with them and between them, as that old poem of St Patrick said: “Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.”

This is the companionship and community that exists in Christ and His Church, among His brothers, and in those He sends out to carry His Word and promise. For He has gone the way before them. And before you.

He is the One who was sent by the Father as a Lamb in the midst of wolves, as a Lamb sent to slaughter. He was stripped of His possessions - moneybag, knapsack, sandals. Everyone deserted and left Him; none greeted Him.

Today we remember and give thanks to God for St Luke the Evangelist; companion of St Paul. As the evangelists are each depicted with different winged figure, St Luke is represented as a winged bull. For His Gospel begins with the priest Zachariah offering sacrifice and it presents Christ as the once-for-all atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. He was cut off and alone for you, that you may not be. He was abandoned and betrayed, in order that you be kept safe and secure in the Ark of the Church. He forgave those who crucified and nailed Him to the Cross. That is, He forgives you.

For in His resurrection Christ comes among His disciples, His dear companions, and the first Word He speaks to them is peace. Peace be with you. He send them out to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His Name to all the earth.

And so it is that the Word goes forth, whatever the media, the Word of reconciliation and peace is uttered by the emissaries of Christ around the Word.

So it is spoken here, in this place, in this House, among you. The surpassing peace of Christ that forgives all your sins, that joins you to Him and to one another in suffering and in joy. For by your Baptism into Christ you are all sons of peace, receiving in faith His Word. It is by His Word that His Kingdom comes to you now. Come, then, and eat and drink what is set before you: the Body and Blood of Christ, the medicine of immortality, the abiding peace of the Divine Physician.

Indeed the Lord will rescue you from every evil deed and bring you safely into His heaenly Kingdom; to Him together with the Father and + the Holy Spirit, one God, be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

I don’t want to be the donkey. I want to be the master. That is my sin. I suspect it is yours as well. What is more, I would like to own a thousand donkeys, a thousand beasts of burden to do my work, to do my bidding, while I am at leisure, while I am in command.

But we are the donkey, the one in the pit. Which of you, Jesus addresses the Pharisees at their Sabbath dinner, Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out? We are the donkey in the pit. Behold your life! It is not a pit - a mess of infidelities and arguments, psychological problems and persistent sins, indecency and gossip, weaknesses to which you continually succumb? And finally, your body is lowered into a literal pit. Who will rescue you? Who will raise you up?

And what about your family? We come to church and put on a good show, with nice clothes and cheery faces, and of course we ought to be kind and considerate to one another. But we hold back, rarely daring to reveal our real problems. We greet one another as mere acquaintances, emotionally aloof, with a pleasant hand shake and a slight smile. Yet inside we are sad, frustrated, burdened. It makes us feel helpless.

And that’s the problem. We don’t want to feel helpless. We don’t want to be the donkey. We want to be the master. That is the sin of pride. And pride is the essence of the sinful nature that drive all our other sins.

So what does this have to do with the Sabbath controversy in today’s Gospel? The question about the Sabbath, the seventh day, is a question about the Third Commandment, Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. It is a question about how we relate to God. Is the Sabbath primarily about Law - what we do for God - or about Gospel - what God does for us?

The Pharisees could not answer Jesus’ question about the donkey in the pit because they disagreed with Jesus’ action of healing the sick man on the Sabbath. They deemed His miracle to be “work” and thus a violation of the Law. If man does not keep the Law, then he cannot be saved. This is true.

But the Sabbath is not really about our keeping of the Law. The day of rest is about Law breakers receiving pardon. It is about donkeys in pits getting rescued. From the dawn of creation until now the Sabbath is about God showing mercy to men, which collectively, all of us, have fallen into a pit, a grave, and cannot get our way out.

Now it sounds like Jesus is saying, “Wouldn’t you rescue your donkey if he fell into a pit, even if it was the Sabbath day?” But we are not the master. We are the donkey. So it is as if Jesus is saying, “Isn’t the Sabbath day all about rescuing stupid, stubborn beasts from holes they’ve fallen into? Six days man works, but on the seventh he rests to see that God must work. God must do what man cannot do for himself. And this” Jesus is saying, “is why I have come.”

There is an interesting variant in the Greek text of this Gospel lesson. Some manuscripts, instead of “donkey” say “son.” The words actually sound similar. So, it could read, Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a pit on the Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out? It is likely a simple scribal error, the inadvertent change of a letter. But that is certainly how God sees us donkeys: as sons. No matter what pits we’ve managed to fall into, no matter how terribly we’ve stumbled, no matter how far from home we have wandered. He wishes to pull us out, to rescue us. He wishes to welcome us home and give us a seat of honor at the table.

But the religion of our hearts wants to do it ourselves. We will obey the law, we will earn the best seat at the table, we will pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. This whole old Adam notion of we will do, we will achieve, we will experience, we will decide. Oh sure, we’ll admit that we need some help from God; but God helps those who help themselves right? Wrong! God helps those who cannot help themselves. God helps the utterly helpless. He helps men with dropsy who cannot be healed. He helps sons and donkeys who are fallen into pits and cannot rescue themselves.

It is written, Who is like the Lord our God who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of His people (Ps 113:5-7). It may be translated, God stoops and makes you princes.

This is why we bow or even genuflect at the altar at those glorious words of the Creed, et homo factus est, “And was made Man.” I would encourage you to bow deeply at those words as well. Listen to what Dr Luther had to say about this: The following tale is told about a coarse and brutal lout. While the words “And was made mad” were being sung in the church, he remained standing, neither genuflecting nor removing his hat. He showed no reverence, but just stood there like a clod. All the others dropped to their knees when the Nicene Creed was prayed and chanted devoutly. Then the devil stepped up to him and hit him so hard it made his head spin. He cursed him gruesomely and said, “May hell consume you, you boorish [donkey]! If God had become an angel like me and the congregation sang, ‘God was made an angel,’ I would bend not only my knees but my whole body to the ground! Yes, I would crawl down into the ground. And you vile human creature, you stand there like a stick or a stone. You hear that God did not become an angel but a man like you, and you just stand there like a stick of wood!

“Whether this story is true or not” says Luther, “it is nevertheless in accordance with the faith. And with this illustrative story the holy fathers wished to admonish the youth to revere the indescribably great miracle of the incarnation.”

For this reason God became one of us. In the incarnation God became man, He took the lowest seat at the table, He stooped down into the dust and dirt, the pit and ash of our lives. He covered Himself our transgression and sin. He became our sin. And by His death for sinners He lifts us from the grave to be seated with Him. By His Cross He pulls us from the pit to a place of honor at His Holy Table. God became Man so that man could be brought back to God.

Therefore, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with humility and gentleness. Humble yourselves in the presence of the King by the confession of your sins. For Christ became your beast of burden, shouldering the weight of your sin upon Himself. He says to you here, at His Table, “Come up here as sons and daughters, rescued from sin and death and grave, seated in honor, to receive My Body given for you, My Blood shed for your for the forgiveness of your sins. You have no need to lift yourself up or put yourself forward, for I Me you are exalted.”

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It is such a simple word. A small part of speech. One of the conjunctions. “And.” In the Greek, kai. It joins parts of a sentence. St Luke uses it, though, to elucidate the gravity of the scene.

Jesus went to a town called Nain with His disciples where they observed a funeral procession. A man who had died was being carried out AND he was the only son of his mother AND she was a widow AND a considerable crowd from the town was with her. This little conjunction compounds her misery. She had buried her parents, father and mother. She lost her husband. Now a child, her only son. Though the crowd is with her, she is alone. Desperately alone. Isolated in her grief and misery.

This is the potential of suffering: to separate us from one another in sorrow, to become cut off, cold, calloused, bitter. You hear it in the words of the widow of Zarephath, how she lashed out at Elijah, Have you come to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son! How often have your words echoed her’s? In what prison has your grief confined you? Have you grown bitter, calloused? Lashing out those who love you?

These poor, childless widows embark on a procession of death. A procession that began not at the gates of Nain or the town of Zarephath, but at the Garden of Eden. In trespassing the Word: Don’t eat of the tree, Adam and Eve severed fellowship with the Lord AND they brought sin and death into the world AND they were exiled from paradise AND they were sent into the cursed wilderness AND you follow in their train. Oh how our misery is compounded! You take your place behind your first parents, along with these widows, in the procession of death, that slow march to the grave for the wages of sin is death (Rm 6:23).

But - another conjunction! - But, the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rm 6:23). Jesus went to a town called Nain, AND His disciples AND a great crowd went with Him. AND when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her. The superabundance of our Lord’s mercy!

There are two processions. One of death - the dead man, the boy, their mothers, Adam, Eve, you, all creation. A long, slow march to the grave; a walk of sorrow and fear, of compounding misery and grief.

And there is a procession of life - Christ our Lord, the life of all the living, at its head! He has compassion, splancnidzathe, for this childless widow. Alone and scared, filled with anxiety, our Lord feels for her deep down in His guts; it is a visceral love. His heart goes out to her. Do not weep, He says. He speaks His Word of comfort and peace.

Then He came up and touched the bier and the bearers stood still. The two processions - one of death, one of life - confront each other. The Lord of life steps in front of this death march. He stops death dead in its tracks. Death shall not pass. And He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to His mother.

This is the God of the prophet Elijah who gave life to the young boy. He is the Greatest Prophet, come in the flesh. He is able to far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. In the beginning His Word spoke all creation into existence. Be light and there is light. Be there seas, be there dry land and animals. And there are seas, earth, animals! So to now: Young man, I say to you, arise. It is as if He said, “Be there life! Death be ended.” And there is life! The boy sat up and began to speak.

This is the surpassing love of Christ, as St Paul says. Oh the breath and length and height and depth! For Christ the Word of life made flesh does not merely stop funeral processions, He has undone death entirely in His own death. This scene is but a skirmish of the great battle; where the Lord of life confronts the Prince of death in mortal combat. As that great Easter canticle sings, “Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous; the Prince of life, who died, reigns immortal” (LSB 460:1).

Upon the Cross Christ confronts death in His own death. He who touched the dead man’s bier, takes into Himself the death of all; He assumes the deadly consequences of your sins and bears them in His own body on the tree. There He dies for sin, once for all, AND the Father punishes the Son for your sin AND the Son willing obeys AND you are reconciled to the Father.

He swallows up death in His death, and He, the Word of life, has been raised from the dead, brining life and immortality to light. AND He puts His victory over death and sin and the grave in His Word AND in Holy Baptism AND in the Absolution AND in the Eucharist AND in the mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren. Oh the superabundance of our Lord’s compassion for you!

For in your baptism Christ, the Lord of Life, stretched Himself upon you three times in the Triune Name of God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There He stopped your death and gave you a share in His own death for sin and His eternal life. You were raised from your watery grave and Jesus gave you back to your mother and father. In fact, He gave you a new Mother and Father!

What does St Paul say? For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. You bear the Name of the God. You are His child, He your Father, Christ your Brother. AND the Church is your Mother. He has given you into her arms AND into the arms of one another, to care for in love and compassion, as fellow heirs, as brothers and sisters in Christ. Thus you are not alone. You are not cut off in your grief and sorrow, but you bear one another’s burdens as Christ shouldered your sin to the Cross.

Thus does He place a Cross upon you, as His beloved. Hence St Paul’s words again, I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. He rightly sees his own suffering as to the glory of the brethren, of the Church. So it is for you. You come here, the His Supper. You do not touch His funeral bier, rather you are given to share in His everlasting life, His Body and Blood back from the grave, victorious over death.

In eating and drinking you have fellowship with your Lord and King, but also with one another. He who loves and has redeemed you, gives you to one another in love. In this way, dear ones, you share one another’s burdens. For His Supper is not merely between you and Him, but also between one another; in confession, in fellowship, in love and compassion. This is made plain in the Greek as St Paul speaks to the churches in Ephesus. He does not speak in the singular “you,” but in the plural. He speaks to “you all.”

This is how it shall be on the Last Day. His Spirit who strengthens you in your inner being now, shall on that Day raise you and all the dead. It is as if He will come to your graves, touch you and say, “Little one, I say to you, arise.” And you shall sit up and be welcomed with all believers into the glory prepared for by the Father from the foundation of the world. To Him be glory in the Church, through Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit, throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Back to the Future:Christian Charity in the Early Church asGuidance for the Body of Christ Today

Many Church historians have noted that similarities to the climate and culture in which the Church finds herself today are more like the environment of the Early Church (prior to the legalization of Christianity in AD 313) than to the Medieval Church. This observation is probably true. The rise of secular paganism, the increase of those ignorant of Christianity and the Bible, the persecution of Christians around the world, all of these bare remarkable similarities to the life of the earliest Christians. In the midst of this there is great need: hunger, poverty, homelessness, both among us and among the first generations of Jesus’ disciples. Their mercy and compassion, love and charity, can serve as a guide for us today. What was the shape and scope of Christian charity (charitas) in the first centuries after the death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ? Consider these Scripture passages:

All who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need (Acts 2:44-45)

The churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord (2 Cor 8:2-3).

Is this not the fast I chose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? (Is 58:6-7)

Examples of Zaccheus (Luke 19) and Tabitha (Acts 9) and St Paul’s collection for the saints in Jerusalem (1 Cor 16; 2 Cor 8; 9; Gal 2) were prescriptions for the character and behavior of the early Christians. For they were following in the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Charity of God Incarnate; “in Him personally love was manifest, that moved by love He came to us, and lived upon earth a life which from its very first breath to its latest was spent in the service of love, and that He finally, through the greatness of His love, gave Himself for us to the death of the cross” (Ulhorn,Christian Charity in the Ancient Church, p57).

The Didache, an early Christian catechism of sorts, states, “You shall not hesitate to give, nor shall you grumble when giving, for you will know who is the good paymaster of the reward. You shall not turn away from someone in need, but shall share everything with your brother or sister, and do not claim that anything is your own. For if you are sharers in what is imperishable how much more in perishable things!” (4:7-8).

I quoted last month and above from a work by Gerhard Ulhorn, Christian Charity in the Ancient Church. This 19th century scholar researches and presents the shape and scope of Christian charity from the time of the Apostles until the legalization of Christianity by Emperor Constantine in AD 313. This is the first of a three volume set on charity in the Church, each covering a period of church history. It is an eye-opening text. The following are all quotes from this book:

“Let us remember that there could not be any real charity in the heathen world because there was no community. There is one now; our Lord has founded it. The day of Pentecost was, as it were, the birthday of the Church; and it was also the birthday of that Christian charity which is inseparable from the Church.” (p72)

“A healthy charity is only possible where healthy moral views of work and property prevail, as inversely, a false moral appreciation of labour and property inevitably produces a morbid phenomena in the sphere of charity” (p126)

“The more heartily the heavenly blessings of the kingdom of God were embraced, the more must earthly goods have lost their value. The more intently the eye was directed to another world and to a speedy termination of this dispensation, the more must earth have appeared a foreign country, and earthly property an uncertain possession” (p127)

“Simplicity, contentment, moderation, are required of every Christian.” (p131)

“The individual Christian lived entirely in and for the Church. The churches were still small and like a family; each Christian knew all others. Even Cyprian in a town like Carthage knew all the members of the church.” (p137)

“The individual gave to the Church what love impelled him to bestow; gifts were collected for the poor in the meetings of the Church, at public worship and at the Lord’s Supper; the officers of the Church dispensed them. The relief of the poor by the Church is the special characteristic of the charity of this age.” (p133)

“Where the Church learnt of the highest love, the love of Christ, who died for His people and feeds them with His body and blood, there love was not merely preached about, extolled and inculcated, but also practised, and there too it was not merely symbolically represented, but an act of love was actually performed, the act of giving to the poor and needy.” (p146)

“The whole life of a Christian is a festival, a continuous sacrifice, and this sacrifice consists on the one side in payer and thanksgiving, on the other in imparting of his substance to the needy.” (p150)

“It is not in resources but in individual energy, that charity has its centre of gravity.” (p160)

“The history of Christian charity can only be understood in connection with the entire development of ecclesiastical, nay of secular history.” (p219)

“The government proper was in the hands of the bureaucracy. The people sick unto death were no longer in a condition to rule themselves, all self-government having long ceased. Whatever was done, was done from above. Of these thoroughly deceitful and intriguing officials, but few had the good of the people in view; the majority were only bent upon their own advantage, accessible to every kind of corruption, striving only to raise themselves to large incomes, to brilliant positions, to the utmost possible nearness to the imperial sun, the dispenser of all benefits.” (p221)

The quotes continue! As I said, this book is an eye-opener when it comes to the scope and shape of Christian charity, not only in the ancient Church, but for our mileau and setting today. As the Church struggles against the devil, the world, and our own flesh, she struggles to remain in her true identity - the living Body of Christ in a dying world. Life is received and given only in the Word of Christ, for His forgiveness of sins is life! Yet life does not stop there. When the ultimate is known, the penultimate is not so scary or deadly. Heaven is ours now by faith in Christ! Our neighbor is in need, both of physical care and comfort, but also, of that saving Word, that true “charity” of the Gospel that claims sinners and makes them princes!

Your unworthy servant, Pastor MierowFeast of St Michael and All Angels Russian Icon of the Rich Man and Lazarus